Peculiarities of the Diet of Ukrainians during the 1932–1933 Genocide (based on the Memories of the Holodomor Witnesses)

Based on 155 accounts of the Holodomor witnesses (covering the whole USSR territory), the author comprehensively studied the peculiarities of the diet of Ukrainians in the conditions of the crime of genocide committed by the communist totalitarian regime in 1932 and 1933. The traditional diet of Ukrainians was before the 1930s was described. It is known that that since ancient times, Ukrainians were primarily involved in agriculture, as well as cattle breeding and gathering, which determined the traditional diet of the nation, whose daily ration consisted of food of plant and animal origin. From the products of plant origin, they cooked cereal and vegetable dishes (bread, halushky, zatirka, noodles, porridge, kulish, chur, solomakha, mamalyha, lemishka, borsch, yushka, soup, cabbage soup, potatoes, pancakes, hashbrowns, dumplings), and from the products of animal origin, they cooked meat, dairy and fish dishes (sausages, blood sausages, roast, saltyson, kholodets, dushenyna, kruchenyky, sichenyky, khliaka, riazhanka, butter, sour cream, cheese, etc.). The most important dish on the table of Ukrainians was and still is bread. It has been analyzed and proved that during the Holodomor genocide years, the destruction of traditional Ukrainian nutrition, along with customs and traditions related to it took place. The communist totalitarian regime, by taking away all edible supplies, doomed Ukrainians to hungry death. To survive, Ukrainians ate surrogates, plants (leaves, weeds, grass); small animals, insects, birds (hedgehogs, cats, dogs, gophers, sparrows, crows, pigeons, storks, frogs, mollusks, snails, dragonflies); cow’s milk (families that had a cow called it a feeder and a savior); vegetables, fruits, berries; rotten potatoes, beets (dug up in early spring); offal; human flesh (cases of corpse-eating and cannibalism were recorded). Consumption of such products caused the most severe stomach diseases and even fatal poisonings. People suffered from vomiting, diarrhea, swelling, weakness, inflammation, and unbearable pain. Epidemics and various diseases, often fatal ones (smallpox, dysentery, louse-borne typhus and typhoid fever, malaria, pellagra, glanders, dropsy) spread in Ukraine Due to hunger, Ukrainians developed mental disorders, their consciousness was clouded, their thinking, will, and memory were disturbed, and their behavior changed. Keywords: Holodomor, 1932–1933, genocide, non-traditional food, surrogates, moral and psychological effects.